World View & Market Commentary. Forest first; Trees second. Focused on Real & Knowable facts that filter through the "experts" fluff and media hyperbole. Where we've been, what the future may hold and developing a better way forward.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Equity futures are higher yet again this morning, with the dollar still losing, oil resting around the horrific $108 level, gold near record highs, silver setting new all-time record highs, corn racing to the moon with the other food commodities following. No problem, I’m sure that everyone’s wages are keeping up to that.

Speaking of great American job creation, it looks like April may have some serious job help from… wait for it…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- McDonald's said Monday that it is planning a one-day hiring spree of 50,000 new workers on April 19 for its U.S. restaurants.

McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500) said that these new "Mcjobs" will include crew and management positions, part-time and full-time.

McDonald's, which has 14,000 restaurants in the United States, said the hires will occur nationwide.
"We're excited to offer 50,000 new jobs, all across America, all in one day," said Jan Fields, president of McDonald's U.S.A.

Fields, who started working at a McDonald's restaurant as a crew member behind the counter in 1978, said the 50,000 new hires will increase the U.S. workforce to 700,000 from its current level of 650,000.

She said the average pay for the jobs is $8.30 an hour. That's compared to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, though in some states the minimum wage is higher. She said that restaurant managers can make $50,000 a year.

Isn’t that wonderful!

And to think, CNN even produced a paragraph with more than a single sentence!

Why I’m so excited!

Of course President Obama will be touting wonderful Job Figures next month.

That $8.30 an hour equals a whopping $332 before taxes per week!

Why at that rate, a McDonald’s worker will work 2.5 weeks just to pay for their mandatory health insurance – mission accomplished!

There is very little economic data this week, but the real serious manly men “investors” will be hanging on every word muttered within the FOMC Minutes which my Schwab broker claims to be the most significant release of the week. Oh boy, I can’t wait because after paying for healthcare, gas, and food I have $2.50 cents left over for retirement! Would you like fries with that?

Okay, while I’m poking fun at the state of our completely broken economy, it is time to turn to a very serious issue – namely the radioactive poisoning of our drinking water and food chain. I wish I were joking… I’m not. What I’m about to say seems so surreal, that it’s difficult to believe, and even more difficult to acknowledge and to then ACT upon – but act you must to protect your health, that is my opinion.

What’s happening is that the runaway nuclear plants in Japan are casting off clouds of radioactive materials. Those invisible clouds are wafting over parts of Japan, but most are heading East across the Pacific and are being carried across North America. We’re talking about radioactive iodine and cesium. The iodine has a half life of only 8 days, but the release of it is continuing unabated. The cesium particles have half lives that are much more pervasive.

Now, in Japan the Government and TEPCO have been slow to issue data that continues to be incomplete. Our government is doing the same – we have to understand their psychology and self-interest – they want to protect themselves and to not cause panic. Sometimes panic is justified, and if you live within 80 km of the plant, you needed to be gone a very long time ago, and yet the Japanese still have not even recommended evacuation that far out.

Now, the reason I’m so concerned is that we are not only finding radioactive iodine and cesium in the milk (milk/ dairy products concentrate the radiation 700 times) and in grass (you know it is therefore in leafy vegetables), but now very high concentrations of it have been found in the rainwater at Berkeley in California near San Francisco – the following is being reported by Berkeley University: UCB Rain Water Sampling Results

No explanation? It’s quite apparent that what’s happening is that these clouds of radiation fallout with the weather systems as they move across the Pacific and then across the United States. When it rains, the water condenses the molecules out of the sky and they fall to Earth. Once in the water, it then finds its way into the food and then into YOU.

I have read a lot of articles and research over the past couple of weeks, and have come to the conclusion that this is FAR more dangerous to your health than you are being led to believe. The media favors experts whose opinions are in conflict with actual scientific data – studies for example that show the fallout from Chernobyl has killed more than a million people. Studies that show many, many people died from the accident at Three Mile Island, yet these deaths are not acknowledged by many because they are insidious and happen over a number of years. You were first told that the particles would not reach the United States – and just like “Fedspeak,” they were wrong. Then you were told that it poses no threat as it is not concentrated enough – and once again they were wrong.

Wave after wave of radiation continues to cross the ocean with absolutely no serious effort yet to contain the radiation to the Fukushima site.

You can call me crazy if you like, but I don’t just sit around waiting to be told what to do by some corporate sponsored government official whose self-interest isn’t the same as my own. I am simply going to point out that there are ways to filter this out of water, that most bottled water supplies are probably safe for now but may not be for long, and that the food on the shelves right now may be the last uncontaminated food for awhile – possibly a long while.

While I’m definitely not trying to start a run on store shelves – the readers of this blog are more aware than most and are always ahead of the crowd. Just imagine what happens to store shelves and the supply of quality water filters once these reports and then the follow-on knowledge become mainstream… you have been forewarned, do not expect your local water utility to warn you about a passing nuclear contaminated cloud, they are clueless and are not equipped to detect much less to take any meaningful action.

The false illusion of a rising market will not help to placate the masses once store shelves are empty and it becomes known that the food and water supply are contaminated. The thing is that the contamination will start out spotty in regions, but then you won’t be able to tell if your food or water came from a contaminated region. Thus taking in water and food will become a form of Russian Roulette. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a game I think we should be playing with our health and with our family’s health.

And the truth is that there is little your government can do at this point to help you – but they should be informing you and they are not. They can also pressure the Japanese to contain the radiation on their own soil, and they are not. In fact, the Japanese just announced that they are going ahead and releasing contaminated water into the Pacific – thanks.

Here is an update made yesterday by Arnie Gunderson, one of the few true experts who is being honest and insightful about this:

But even Arnie is not yet discussing the ramification of the readings found here at home – and he has yet to advocate a plan that will actually contain the radiation to that site. My advice is to stay informed and to take what action you can to assure that you have a safe supply of food and water. I wish I didn’t have to say that, but I do not think it to be hyperbole at this point and armed with the facts instead of just a special interest based opinion.